Collector of Lost Things (3 page)

‘I have had many passengers on this vessel, and I look forward to becoming acquainted with you both. I would like to add that you are welcome to wander the ship at will, although the hold is not of interest and is of a dark and dangerous nature. Staves, hoops, manila sea rope, timber, scantling and coal tar is an excellent environment for breaking an ankle. Any breakages of bones will be set by the ship’s carpenter, which is not a pleasant prospect! Myself, Mr French the first mate or Mr Talbot the second mate will gladly explain all matters of the ship, when asked. They are both splendid seamen of great experience, particularly in the frigid waters of the North. You may talk to the crew but please be aware they are on board to work, and may not be convivial to idle conversation and in general do not match your education. At times when sails are to be furled or the windlass or capstans manned they are to perform these tasks quickly and should not be approached. I trust both of you will use your discretion with this. On a more delicate matter, most of the crew are Irish, and their land has once more been afflicted with the potato blight, which may have affected several of their number directly. I trust you will bear this in mind. But, enough of that! I believe the steward has provided you with a comprehensive list of times for drinks and meals and I suggest we start with the soup right away.’

Sykes sat back in his chair, greatly pleased, while the pantry door slid open and Simao wheeled in a tureen of soup.

‘Mr Bletchley,’ the captain asked, ‘are you a good shot?’

‘Unfailingly.’

‘Game birds?’

‘Mostly waterfowl. Duck, teal, widgeon and pintail. Grouse and pheasant in the season.’

‘Nothing larger?’

‘Deer.’

Captain Sykes stroked his moustache either side of his mouth, considering. ‘The seal has no heart. It has to be shot in the head. You can kill it no other way. Mr Talbot will gladly show you how.’

‘Thank you. Mr Talbot, I shall look forward to it.’ The second mate looked up glumly from his plate and nodded at Bletchley.

The captain continued. ‘Mr French informs me you have handmade rifles with you?’

‘Absolutely. Mr Gallyon of Cambridge has personally manufactured them. I generally use a fowling-piece at the decoy, where the shoot is close and controlled by the dogs. With pheasants I prefer the trusty long-barrelled three-iron Damascus. But anticipating a relatively close shot I commissioned a shorter barrel and an easy breech. Mr Gallyon suggested a twenty-eight-inch barrel, rather than a thirty-six. And one even shorter than that, for when prey is close. He designs all my rifles, and I believe he has done a tremendous job on this occasion. I have had them personally engraved.’

Sykes looked as if he approved. ‘I would like to try your guns in the morning, if I may?’

‘I would be honoured.’

‘In my time I could shoot the smirk from a duck’s beak,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that right, Mr French?’

‘Yes, sir, and even on occasion you were known to make a kill.’

The captain grinned. ‘Simao, what is this soup?’ he asked.

‘The bean and pork belly, sir.’

‘Very good. We are lucky, gentleman, to have Simao on board. For the Portuguese are fine cooks, especially with salted cod. Cabinet pudding, too, if you’re lucky!’ Simao took the compliment with a neat bow and, at Sykes’ instruction, began to clear away the empty place setting.

‘Mr Bletchley, will we be seeing your wife?’

Bletchley, who at that moment had been drinking, nearly coughed on his wine. He looked at the captain, alarmed, before saying, ‘Oh no, Captain Sykes, she is not my wife.’

Sykes was more interested than apologetic for his mistake. He let Bletchley continue.

‘I’m afraid she is not well. Most faint, and troubled. I have given her a hop pillow to ease her mind. She doesn’t want to leave her cabin.’

‘Well,’ the captain said, ‘that is our loss, I am sure.’

‘Why, yes,’ Bletchley agreed. Momentarily, again, I saw something highly mistrustful in his expression.

Over the main course, which was beef that first evening, the captain turned his attention to me. He made it his duty to interview each of his passengers. I explained to the table that I would be collecting natural specimens for a group of individuals who had procured my services for the task and paid my passage.

‘Who are these employers of yours?’ the captain asked.

‘Four gentlemen. I hardly know them.’

‘But they wish to find this extinct bird?’

‘It is somewhat more complicated than that,’ I explained. ‘I think they care little about the bird. But they do care whether it’s extinct or not. They have made a bet on it.’

‘A bet?’

‘As gentlemen like to do.’

‘Is this what you commonly undertake?’ the captain asked. ‘Settle pointless bets?’

‘No,’ I answered. ‘It is unusual. But I have worked closely with museums and private enthusiasts, so the task of collecting natural wildlife and recording their habitats is something I relish. When these animals are presented in their display cases, it is important to be correct with all aspects of posture and environment.’

‘Very interesting,’ Sykes commented. ‘You should consider stuffing Mr Talbot and placing him in a glass case, for he is one of the Arctic’s most frequent visitors.’

Talbot, the second mate, looked back unamused, resolutely refusing to smile. Sykes laughed heartily at his own joke, undaunted. ‘But what are these birds I have been told about?’

‘The great auk,’ I replied. ‘It is a large flightless bird—you might regard it as a northern penguin. In recent years their numbers have suffered from hunting and loss of their colonies. It’s believed that the final breeding couple were killed last year, on an uninhabited island off Iceland by three local fishermen. They killed the birds and smashed the egg. I, and the collectors I represent, would dearly love to find some remains.’

‘Mr Saxby, steering my ship in the search for an extinct bird is one of the more peculiar charters I have accepted. But I dare say that if there are any remains, we shall find them. A beak or a foot at least for your display cabinets.’

‘Let us hope so,’ I said.

At that moment Mr Talbot decided to speak. ‘I have eaten the auk,’ he said.

The captain slapped the table with pleasure. ‘Congratulations, Saxby! You have made our second mate speak,’ he said with a flourish. ‘So you have eaten this bird, Talbot?’

‘Aye.’

‘And what of it?’

‘Oily.’

That was all he had to say on the matter. ‘I will explain, gentlemen,’ the captain continued. ‘Mr Talbot is a man of few words. But before this cosy vessel he spent most of his life serving on whalers. He knows about all the Arctic creatures.’

‘And how to kill them,’ French added.

The captain laughed. ‘Perhaps we should search for remnants of your bird among the hairs of his beard,’ he joked.

For the first time Talbot showed some pleasure in the occasion. He looked up at me, deliberately I believe, and placed a large slice of beef into his mouth with his fork and continued to look at me while he chewed the meat. His beard was full and thick, but I could see the grease on his lips and the edges of his teeth. It was quite revolting, and I felt a warning of some form, aimed at me, although I had no idea what for. Still, I raised my glass and drank a toast to him, which he acknowledged, as he swallowed.

That first night, needing air and a space to myself, I went on deck and was thrilled to find it so deserted. It was almost completely without illumination, as if the ship was a solid featureless platform on which to walk above the sea. I was struck by how quiet a sailing ship was. Voices could easily be heard, and none of the sailors had cause to speak loudly. From the quarterdeck’s rail—which was as wide as a church pew—I watched the waves running alongside, noticing how some would turn against the timbers and burst into white foam. Further out, the sea was dark and indistinguishable, with mysterious lines where the crest of a small wave was breaking. There was a clean sharp smell of salt and a soothing rush of water. The impression I’d had when I first stepped onto the
Amethyst
’s deck had been that I was entering a web of knots. I had almost expected to see giant spiders above me, each one as wide as a bale of hay, watching me as I stepped beneath them, and it was difficult to dispel that image. The bolsters in the rigging had resembled giant insects, wound in spider’s silk.

I didn’t venture far, for fear of snagging an ankle in some of the many ropes or blocks; instead I sat on a corner of the main hatch and listened to the sounds of the air and sails. I imagined how it must be, at the tops of these tall trees, with just the icy dome of the sky and stars above, riding the ship on the tip of a point a hundred feet in the air.

Sitting on the hatch, I was almost invisible, the only illumination on the main deck being the spill that emerged from the portholes of the fo’c’sle beyond the mainmast, and the open door of Simao’s galley, which was a bright square shape cut into the darkness. Inside, I could see the corner of the cooking range, with a rail running around it to stop pots falling during rough weather, and several shelves and cupboards, all neatly ordered. A pendant was pinned to a shelf with the word Azores embroidered upon it. Simao was still busy. With two of the men he was arranging for meat to be hung from the rigging, where it would be kept cool and fresh. Double smoked sides of Wiltshire bacon had already been hauled up onto the mizzenmast, and two sides of an Aberdeenshire bullock had been roped to the mainmast, beneath the belaying pins where I sat.

On the quarterdeck it was just as dark, the only light being two partially masked dark-lanterns set above the twin binnacles at the helm, and the glimmer of brass along the skylights of the saloon. In a long sea cloak and cap, French was standing next to the wheel, his arms behind his back in a military fashion. He was as featureless as a churchyard shadow.

‘Enjoy your meal?’ he asked, on my approach.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘We shall see if you keep it down,’ he quipped, revealing a glint of teeth as he smiled. The compasses were gimballed, and in the glow from the lanterns their resolute needles shone like brilliant jewels set in their brass cylinders.

French continued: ‘The captain bores me with his zeal for the ship and the journey. I have heard him say these things many times to passengers such as yourself—believe me, he is really not very sincere.’

I was surprised by his candour, and equally glad that in such darkness he wouldn’t be able to scrutinise my expression. He seemed out to test me.

‘But he knows his mind,’ French added, suggesting that he’d gone too far. ‘The Arctic needs a strength of mind. If you are weak, there are a thousand ways to die.’

‘Or become crazed.’

‘Yes, that too.’

‘I have read many accounts of Arctic exploration,’ I said.

‘As have I. It is always wise, embarking upon a journey such as we are on, to consider the other members of the crew, in case forced by adversity we should have to eat one of them.’ He chuckled, quickly, but without conviction.

I decided to rise to the challenge: ‘Well, on first impressions, I believe Mr Talbot would make for a very unpleasant meal.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, he is pure goat. Your boots would be preferable.’

Above me, the sides of bacon swayed eerily in the rigging, once, before settling again.

‘I think I shall read for a while,’ I informed French, wishing to take my leave. I had the feeling he was out to trick me into saying something I might regret.

‘Yes. One of your splendid books,’ he replied.

Back beneath the mast I wondered whether this was the absolute centre of the ship, the confluence of all the many balanced pressures of wind, sea and sail. Above me, the dark column of wood rose impressively into the sky. I could hear sounds, as one does under great trees, of the wooden limbs bending and turning. Ropes, too, stretching as the spars and yards tightened. Occasionally I heard the knock of iron upon iron, as bearings and fixings came together, and in waves I listened to the full enveloping sound of canvas filled with air. It arrived and sank with a whisper.

I smelt the salt of the sea and the caulked timber of the deck and the bloodied smell of the Aberdeen bullock where Simao had tied it. I gazed once more at the sides of bacon that swung from the mizzenmast, wrapped in muslin, like the bodies of criminals hung in gibbets. As the ship swayed, they moved, in dreadful counterbalance.

By angling my book towards the portholes of the fo’c’sle, I was able to read the
Compendium of Arctic Fauna
I had brought with me, whose pages were already frayed from my countless hours of study. Each illustration was wholly familiar. The bull walrus, with tusks raised in fearless defence, dwarfing the Esquimaux who stands cautiously beyond reach, his spear held poised to strike. The razorbills and guillemots gathered on the ledges of some bleak northern skerry, huddled against a wind that couldn’t be drawn but was no doubt there. Then the beasts of the sea, such as the elusive beluga, with its ghostlike countenance, its blind expression, or the narwhals, meeting in a lee of the ice floe, waving their unicorn tusks in strange unknowable greeting. The animals of the world became stranger, larger, more impenetrably skinned the higher north they were found.

On finishing his tasks, Simao approached and kindly hung a lantern above me, for the purposes of reading. I thanked him and he looked for a moment at the open book in my hands.

‘May I see the bird you look for?’ he asked, intrigued.

‘Of course,’ I replied, quickly turning to the page which was bookmarked with a jay’s feather.

‘This is the great auk, which man in his foolishness has made extinct.’

Under the pale flickering light of the lantern, I offered him the illustration. A single bird, the size of a goose, pictured on a ledge of dark rock, with squat legs and wide paddled feet, a stout neck and large spear-shaped bill.

Simao studied the picture for a long time. ‘It is a great bird, sir,’ he said, eventually.

‘Yes, Simao,’ I replied. ‘It was.’

‘Will we find it?’